WASHINGTON -- Less than a week ago, the Cardinals sat at one of their lowest points in decades: not even at the All-Star break yet and already 16 games under .500, not only last place in the National League Central but also with one of the worst records in the Majors. It was an uncharacteristic, almost unfathomable situation for the always-competitive Cardinals, fresh off last year’s division title and four straight playoff berths.
Their hope now is that when they look back at 2023, they view that moment as the nadir. That is still certainly possible after they had their four-game win streak snapped in Wednesday’s soggy 3-0 loss to the Nationals -- the last-place team in the National League East -- though given the context, the team’s seventh time being held scoreless this season also stands as a missed opportunity ahead of its overseas trip to MLB’s 2023 London Series.
“It was a good series, a good trip,” manager Oliver Marmol said. “I felt like we fought hard in certain games, were able to come back in certain games … Overall, I feel like there's a lot of things that are happening that are very positive and pointing in the right direction as far as the style of play that we're used to seeing and [that] we need to play in order to get to where we want to get to.”
The Cardinals are under no delusions about their historically poor start. They also know that if they’re going to salvage their season, they need to begin binging wins … right about now, and they had won four straight before their offense went cold in Wednesday’s matinee finale.
But given where they’re at right now, series wins soon might not be enough to claw their way back into contention. Sweeps are preferred. And instead of leaving for London amidst their best stretch of baseball of the year, the Cardinals wasted seven innings of two-run ball from Miles Mikolas and watched multiple scoring threats fizzle in the late innings to send Mikolas to his fourth straight loss.
“We’re playing pretty good,” Mikolas said. “Four of six wins here on the road trip so far, so we’ve been playing some good ball.”
Mikolas is right, the Cardinals are winners of four of six. But because it coincided with the Reds’ 11-game win streak, the Cardinals have actually lost a half-game in the NL Central standings during that stretch. They boarded their transatlantic flight Wednesday night nine full games back of Cincinnati in the division, six games from the season’s midway point.
Things do not get any easier for the Cardinals in the short term. They’ll take on the Cubs in a two-game set this weekend under the travel and media demands of the first regular-season games in Europe since 2019, then return home for series against the contending Astros and Yankees and then head to Miami to face the Marlins. It’s a gauntlet of a schedule amid a massively important stretch for the Cardinals; however it goes, the next few weeks are critical for the franchise because they will largely shape its behavior at the Trade Deadline, which could bring implications for years to come.
“I'm not sitting here going, man, I wish I could hit the restart button, because I feel like our guys are actually in a really good spot,” Marmol said. “It may be different for other people outside of this clubhouse, but to that group in there, success looks exactly the same: It starts by winning this division, and then playing deep into October and taking our shot at a World Series.
“We’ve been punched quite a bit. … Where do you go from there? You say hell with it, let’s just roll. That’s where we are.”